erstition generally, and he
adhered in his daily life to the simple practices of the ancient
Mazdayashnians. But he was totally unfitted to be the head of a
religious movement; and, although he had collected such of the
priesthood as seemed most worthy, and had built them temples and given
them privileges of all kinds, he was far from satisfied with their mode
of worship. He could not frame a new doctrine, but he had serious doubts
whether the ceremonies his priests performed were as simple and
religious as he wished them to be. The chants, long hymns of endless
repetition and monotony, were well enough, perhaps; the fire that was
kept burning perpetually was a fitting emblem of the sleepless wisdom
and activity of the Supreme Being in overcoming darkness with light. But
the boundless intoxication into which the priests threw themselves by
the excessive drinking of the Haoma, the wild and irregular acts of
frenzy by which they expressed their religious fervour when under the
influence of the subtle drink, were adjuncts to the simple purity of the
bloodless sacrifice which disgusted the king, and he hesitated long as
to some reform in these matters. The oldest Mazdayashnians declared that
the drinking of Haoma was an act, at once pleasing to God and necessary
to stimulate the zeal of the priests in the long and monotonous
chanting, which would otherwise soon sink to a mere perfunctory
performance of a wearisome task. The very repetition which the hymns
contained seemed to prove that they were not intended to be recited by
men not under some extraordinary influence. Only the wild madness of the
Haoma drinker could sustain such an endless series of repeated prayers
with fitting devotion and energy.

All this the king heard and was not satisfied. He attended the
ceremonies with becoming regularity and sat through the performance of
the rites with exemplary patience. But he was disgusted, and he desired
a reform. Then he remembered how Zoroaster himself was a good
Mazdayashnian, and how he had occupied himself with religious studies
from his youth up, and how he had enjoyed the advantage of being the
companion of Daniel, the Hebrew governor, whose grand simplicity of
faith had descended, to some degree, upon his pupil. The Hebrews, Darius
knew, were a sober people of the strongest religious convictions, and he
had heard that, although eating formed, in some way, a part of their
ceremonies, there was no intoxication connected